Dec. 11 – Are they really going to audit the Pentagon? That’s what the new Comptroller has promised. Will they find the estimated $6 trillion the Pentagon itself admits is missing? Don’t hold your breath! More likely it will be another example of the government covering up government malfeasance. Our view on what will likely come from it in today’s Liberty Report:

Thanks to the far-left policies coming out of California’s state legislature, Californians have spent the last month dealing with the highest gas prices in the country with a 12-cent increase on gas taxes.

This is just one example of how extreme-liberal policies harm the American people.

My conservative colleagues and I have been successful in stopping these dangerous policies from succeeding at the federal level, but Nancy Pelosi and her network of far-left activists are working around the clock to take back the majority.

We can’t let radical agendas like this prevail at the federal level – that’s what I’m working for in Congress.

Californians didn’t want this gas tax. They rejected it, but Governor Jerry Brown steamrolled over the needs of his state and increased taxes anyways.

The far-left thinks they can walk right over the needs of the American people and force their exorbitant taxes and regressive policies on us, but we won’t let that happen.

The FCC is voting Thursday on whether to repeal the “Net Neutrality” rule adopted in 2015.

Three years ago, the FCC passed a landmark rule that prevents internet service providers from favoring some sites over others – slowing down connections or charging customers a fee for streaming or other services. It gave Americans equal access to all the content that’s available on the internet – videos, social media, e-commerce sites, etc. – at the same speeds.

But the recently appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, wants to abolish “Net Neutrality,” and give telecommunications giants like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T the upper hand. His plan would:

Drive up prices for internet service. Broadband providers could charge customers higher rates to access certain sites, or raise rates for internet companies to reach consumers faster speeds. Either way, these prices hikes would be passed along to you and me.

Give corporate executives free reign to slow down and censor news or websites that don’t match their political agenda, or give preference to their content – for any reason at all.

Stifle innovation. Cable companies could severely hurt their competitors by blocking specific apps or online services. Small businesses who can’t afford to pay higher rates could be squeezed out altogether.

Broadband providers claim that Net Neutrality rules actually hurts consumers because it discourages investment in their networks. Rubbish. Since Net Neutrality was adopted, investment has remained consistent. During calls with investors, telecom executives themselves have even admitted that Net Neutrality hasn’t hurt their businesses.

There’s still time. Please help stop this corporate power grab over what we can say and do online.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says there should be more transparency in how sites like Facebook and Google restrict conservative content.

His comments come days before the FCC vote on whether to repeal “net neutrality” – a set of rules that currently forces Internet service providers (ISPs) to treat all web traffic equally.

Without net neutrality, your ISP could slow down a competitor’s content or block political ideas it didn’t like. This is already happening with content providers like Google, Facebook, and Twitter – all of which have been accused of restricting pro-Trump and conservative content.

“A lot of famous people have very strong opinions about net neutrality,” said Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “They warn if it’s repealed a handful of tech companies will have total control of the Internet. Wait, doesn’t that already describe the status quo?”

When asked what would prevent ISPs from censoring Fox News if net neutrality were to be dismantled, Pai told Carlson that such actions would require transparency and that the Federal Trade Commission would oversee content restriction. Pai’s criticism of content providers included examples such as YouTube’s crackdown on rightwing Internet personalities and Twitter’s move to block a pro-life campaign video by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).

“A lot of these decisions impinge on the free expression online that we’ve all come to cherish. But there is no real transparency into how these decisions are being made,” says Pai, adding that while Facebook, Google, and Twitter have “blocked content willy-nilly,” ISPs have not.

—

An estimated 66% of American adults get their news through social media sites. As The Hill’s Anders Aslund points out, these sites are generally treated as “nothing but private conversation.”

Aslund blames the lack of regulation for allowing Russia’s fake ads to appear on Facebook during last year’s election. “The social networks need to be regulated as other media are regulated,” writes Aslund. “Ordinary media would not allow such things to happen because they are regulated in numerous ways.”

Facebook and Twitter’s pathetic attempts to eliminate fake news prove they are not capable of pursuing self-regulation. Aslund believes future regulation should prohibit bots and anonymous accounts and prevent foreign citizens from placing ads on social media “in the same way as they are not allowed to contribute campaign financing in the United States.”

Social media platforms are no longer mere “technology companies,” writes Aslund. “Their time of political innocence is over” and “they must take responsibility for their content,” just like a newspaper or broadcaster.

6 –

Fellow conservative,

The mainstream media is having a field day attacking Trump.

And they want you to believe that Republicans and conservatives across the country are turning on President
Trump, too.

Both the House and the Senate have passed versions of a GOP tax plan. According to analyses from the Tax Policy Center, the CBO and numerous economists, both plans overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest people in this country, and both will result in the loss of health insurance for some 13 million Americans. Meanwhile, research warns that millions will face higher taxes and a spike in their health insurance premiums in the years ahead. And there isn’t a single credible study that supports the claim that either of these tax plans will deliver the kind of economic growth — with higher wages and substantially more jobs — the GOP is touting to sell their plan.

In response to a plethora of criticism, and to defend their wild growth projections, Republicans recently circulated a letter, claiming to show that the economic community was backing their plan. What you may not know is that this letter was put together by a corporate advocacy group called the RATE Coalition and, as it turns out, some of the 137 signatories weren’t even economists.

A portion of their letter reads: « Economic growth will accelerate if the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passes, leading to more jobs, higher wages, and a better standard of living for the American people. »

Let us be clear. This is not what most economists believe. Tax cuts that create economic growth start at the bottom, not at the top.

That is why my colleagues, John T. Harvey, Fadhel Kaboub, and I drafted our own statement and circulated it among professional economists. In the last 48 hours, more than 200 Ph.D. economists have added their names to our open letter. We hope that you will read what we have to say and pass along our message. It’s not too late to make the current bill into something that could deliver on the promise of more robust growth, high wages and a new era of prosperity for all Americans.

Thank you for staying engaged,
Stephanie Kelton, Professor of Public Policy and Economics at Stony Brook University, and Sanders Institute Founding Fellow

December 4, 2017An Open Letter to the U.S. Congress
The tax plan will have disastrous consequences for the American people

Dear Senators and Representatives:

The current tax plan will prove ineffective at best. More likely, it will further the collapse of wages and widen the already dangerous levels of income and wealth inequality that have become so obvious that both political parties referenced them during the 2016 presidential campaign. Our central problem is not insufficient profits for corporations. Consumers, not employers, are the real job creators and cutting the corporate tax rate won’t jumpstart the economy. The key to getting businesses to hire and invest is to swamp them with demand for their products, something that is accomplished by raising the incomes of the poor and the middle-class and not those at the very top of the income distribution. Unfortunately, not only have the former faced stagnating wages and unemployment, but they are burdened by mortgage debt, credit card debt, student debt, and payday loan debt. Little wonder this has been the weakest recovery in the post-World War Two era.

Cut taxes for the poor and the middle class and we will see an increase in wages and the creation of the kind of full-time jobs that we so desperately need. Cut corporate tax rates and corporations will end up sitting on an even bigger stockpile of cash. Period. There is no reason to believe that any jobs would come back to the United States or that more funds would be invested here. Firms invest because they expect strong demand for their products, not simply because they have higher profits. Strong demand will only materialize if consumers are empowered with higher wages and relieved of their debt burden.

We, the undersigned economists, stand firmly opposed to the President’s tax plan. Reforms of some sort are not unwarranted, but if our goal is to improve the lives of American workers then this is absolutely not the route to take. Indeed, it may prove to be disastrous. Tax cuts that create economic growth start at the bottom, not at the top. It is not too late to make the current bill into something that could spur growth and employment and usher in a new era of prosperity for all Americans.

Darrick Hamilton, Associate Professor of Economics and Urban Policy at The Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy and the Department of Economics, New School for Social Research, NY

David Eil, Assistant professor of Economics, George Mason University, VA

Randy Albelda, Graduate Program Director and Professor of Economics, and Senior Research Fellow, Center for Social Policy, University of Massachusetts at Boston, MA

Reynold F. Nesiba, Professor of Economics, Augustana University, SD

Richard D. Wolff, Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, and currently visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, NY

***

Dec. 6 – How will President Trump’s announcement that the US would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital affect US policy in the Middle East? How might it affect our security, as the move will most certainly inflame and cause anger in the Muslim world? Is there a silver lining? We cover this complicated issue in today’s Liberty Report:

It’s crunch time for tax reform. Now that the House and Senate both passed their versions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, we are closer than ever to the largest tax cut in American history. This legislation by both chambers will fulfill President Trump’s commitment to the American people by ensuring that…

· The job creator’s tax rate is lowered· The Middle Class gets the tax break they deserve· And our country repatriates billions of dollars back onto our shores

President Trump continued to demonstrate his full commitment to tax reform when he traveled to St. Charles, Missouri this week to deliver a speech and promote the passage of his tax plan. Now that the fate of the middle class miracle is in the home stretch with votes on the final package pending, please keep the pressure on your Representative and Senators by calling them today!

This is an excerpt of the TRUMP PENCE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER, on
12.3.17

***

WHAT ABOUT THE EU AND THE REPATRIATION OF BILLIONS OF EUROS TO LIFT THE ECONOMY UP.

Apparently, some people are regretting the Brexit and would like another vote to take place as soon as possible to correct their vote.

While organizing the referendum and the highly appreciated debate staged at the time, something rare today, it was specified black in white that the next referendum upon the subject would be 10 years later. Be or not be, by the way, for nobody knows what the UK will be 10 years from now.

The lack of clarity on the EU project, coupled with the fate of the eurozone, speeding as a damned train to nobody knows where, have frightened the european people and derailed the EU project.

The eurozone is ill. This illness is behind the downfall of the EU as a place for the future.

In one word the eurozone have failed the EU project, making a mockery of this Great idea.

Naturally, some people are regretting the time when they could travel without a visa. Now, they need one.

The 2008 financial crisis and the war in Lybia are the principal causes of the Brexit. The flow of immigrants or refugees at a time when people were struggling to get their heads out of the waters was too much to handle and to carry on.

Who are the responsible for the 2008 financial crisis and for the war in Lybia ? The UK is one of the pack’s members responsible for the double disaster. The Brexit is a Boomerang. A deservedly fire back.

Don’t regret. Move forward confidently, this is the best thing that could have happened to the Kingdom.

Take a look at those two latest events

Number one. Venezuela is experimenting an electronic form of money. The eurozone is all about immaterial – non facial – money. So why not have a try ?

Political partis are the craddle of our Establishment. Their mismanagement and deep negligences would have cost them Big, during the 1789 Revolution. Two centuries after those revolutions in America, in England and in France, we desperatly find our destinies shaped like they were during pre-revolutionnary ages. The World have fought two World wars, only to discover we have made a dramatic U-turn to the Future.

Those are crazy times. But we have those youths on the air, and those are times, at last, may be, the establishment is starting really listening at them, instead of manipulating them with fake promises and full time entertainment, including social medias.

The establishment is discovering Young people’s aspirations. But this can also be a FRAUDULENT maneuver – another youth instrumentalisation – to disqualify the Republicans and President Trump excellent Job – sending them into the darkness alongside with the democrats.

So it may well be a good fake news or a good news out of fake intentions, meaning a self-fulfilling prophecy. This third parti is needed as a second leg for the democrats. Here in France, en Marche was that third party the Young were dying for, calling for, dreaming at and their dream came true.

En Marche was the democratic parti dying substitute. No more no less. A double.

The democratic party staff joined hands with En Marche. So did the fake medias. The youth is a captive audience, running for Democrats.

There is a lot of confusion going on there. As the democrats have settled themselves Progressives, they have pre-empted the future, discursively. Democrats look and are describing themselves as so futurist, so fashionable and so diverse, while painting the Republicans as conservatives. Lazy conservatives, racist bigots and so on. Naturally the painting is groundless.

May be a third party is a MUST DO. I can’t tell. Who knows ?

What is sure and due HERE and NOW is:

STOP ELECTING CROOKED AND CORRUPT POLITICIANS

STOP ELECTING THOSE WARMONGERING POLITICIANS

ASK FOR ACCOUNTABILITY AND A BIT OF MORALITY AND DECENCY.

AND STEP IN.

GO !

***

The Supreme Court is giving a green light to travel restrictions.

President Trump just had a major victory over the globalist Left.

The Supreme Court is ALLOWING the President’s executive order restricting travel from countries compromised by terrorism to go into full effect – handing our sovereignty back to the United States of America.

This huge victory for the American people is all thanks to YOU — the supporters who ELECTED President Trump and ensured Justice Neil Gorsuch’s appointment to the Supreme Court.

We’re on a winning streak, Elise, and we need you to help us keep winning. Contribute now to help us keep fighting the Left as we MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN!

This massive victory for American security comes just after President Trump boldly withdrew our country from the U.N.’s dangerous, irresponsible Global Compact on Migration – undoing yet another one of Obama’s decisions to surrender our borders to globalist powerbrokers.

But with President Trump at the helm, America is taking back control of our own borders. We are putting America FIRST.